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J.D. Parran
J. D. Parran is an American multi-woodwind player, educator, and composer specializing in jazz and free improvised music. He plays the soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass saxophone, as well as the E-flat clarinet, clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, contra-alto clarinet, flute, piccolo, alto flute, bamboo flute, Native American flute, bamboo saxophone, and nagaswaram. Parran possesses a virtuosic technique and mastery over a number of extended techniques for these instruments.
Parran spent his college years in the St. Louis, Missouri area, where he attended Webster University and received an M.A. degree in music education from Washington University in St. Louis. While a university student, he joined the Black Artists' Group along with Hamiet Bluiett and others. He has lived in New York since 1971, and has served as chairman of the music department and the director of Jazz and African American Music Studies at The Harlem School of the Arts. He also teaches at the City University of New York and Greenwich House Music School.
Parran has recorded with Stevie Wonder and John Lennon. For fifteen years he was a member of the experimental woodwind trio New Winds (with Robert Dick and Ned Rothenberg, and is a longtime member of Anthony Davis's Episteme ensemble. He also performs and records with Anthony Braxton's ensembles and has collaborated with Leroy Jenkins, Hamiet Bluiett, Douglas Ewart, John Lindberg, Peter Brötzmann, and the free improvisation group Company, which included Derek Bailey, Jon Corbett, Hugh Davies, Jamie Muir, Evan Parker, Vinko Globokar, and Joëlle Léandre.
In addition to over 45 recordings as a sideman or collaborator, he has released one recording as leader: J. D. Parran & Spirit Stage (2002).
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JD Parran and Mark Deutsch, Daniel Carter, & Irreversible Entanglements
by Maurice Hogue
California Street Sessions, a new duo recording by reed master JD Parran and bassist Mark Deutsch, is intriguing, particularly when consider the instrumentation: Parran plays a seldom-heard contralto clarinet while Deutsch plays the bazantar, a hybrid bass that he invented himself. The music's excellent too. Other new albums sampled this week come from Daniel Carter and his Telepathic Band, Kris Davis' Diatom Ribbons, Vancouver's Malleus Trio, and saxophonist Andrew Rathbun. Plus--there's always one of those--a preview of Protect Your Light ...
Continue ReadingAmir ElSaffar River of Sound Orchestra: The Other Shore
by Neri Pollastri
Secondo disco per la Rivers of Sound Orchestra, ensemble creato nel 2015 da Amir ElSaffar con il preciso intento di esplorare in modo originale le culture musicali delle sue origini. ElSaffar è infatti nato negli Stati Uniti da madre statunitense e padre di origini irachene; avvicinatosi precocemente alla musica, ha coltivato quella jazzistica dalla discoteca paterna e quella classica dalle frequentazioni della madre; musicista dalle collaborazioni di altissimo livello--tra gli altri Cecil Taylor e Vijay Iyer--solo da adulto si è ...
Continue ReadingJD Parran & Mark Deutsch: Omegathorp: Living City
by Jeff Stockton
JD Parran is a consummate musician's musician, a multi-reedist who has performed in a wide variety of settings, most notably with Julius Hemphill and members of St. Louis' Black Artists Group, as well as Anthony Braxton's ensembles; he was also a member of the horn section Robbie Robertson introduces at the start of The Band's Rock of Ages. Recorded live at NYC's Merkin Concert Hall on September 12, 2002, Parran and bassist Mark Deutsch co-lead a group that includes pianist ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Hill: A Beautiful Day
by C. Michael Bailey
Dusk was only the beginning to this part of the story...I cannot listen to Andrew Hill’s new big band recording without thinking of him and his band as a relatively well-behaved Sam Rivers and the Rivbea Big Band. Of course, that horribly shortchanges the 65 year-old Chicago native who’s Palmetto debut, Dusk, was considered by many critics as the best jazz recording on the year. Add to that that Blue Note’s Alfred Lion considered Hill his last great ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Hill: A Beautiful Day
by Jack Bowers
"There is plenty going on," designated cheerleader Stanley Crouch informs the reader, on composer / pianist Andrew Hill's latest album, A Beautiful Day, which showcases Hill's sixteen-piece big band in a concert performance last January at New York's famed Birdland nightclub. “With a vision given to great plasticity," Crouch writes, “[Hill] has found his own ways to reinterpret 4/4 swing, the blues, the romantic or meditative ballad, and the Afro-Hispanic rhythms that have almost invariably connected one generation of Jazz ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Hill: A Beautiful Day
by Jon Wagner
Sometimes a live recording captures the dynamism and vibe of a band that's really “on." In ideal situations, the musical energy is obvious right off the bat, continues throughout the set, and winds up on a disc. The listener thinks: “Man, I would love to have been at that gig." Andrew Hill's new release A Beautiful Day is one of those recordings. Hill is a pianist who's been around for a long time and played in many different ...
Continue ReadingKen Peplowski: Grenadilla
by Jack Bowers
Ken Peplowski, who has done some experimenting of late within the big-band and classical spheres, comes home to a straight-ahead quartet groove for Grenadilla, on which he plays only clarinet (grenadilla is the name of the wood from which the world's finest clarinets are made). This is clarinet all the way, with Peplowski's group augmented by guests Kenny Davern ("Farewell Blues"), Marty Ehrlich ("Copi," “The Reconsidered Blues," “Variations," “The Soul in the Wood"), J. D. Parran and Scott Robinson ("Variations"). ...
Continue ReadingJazz this week: J.D. Parran & George Sams, "New World Harmonica Jazz," Chapter:SOUL, Chick Corea Trio, and more
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in St. Louis offers some early summer eclecticism, including a homecoming performance by one of our city's exemplars of the avant-garde; a couple of free, multi-venue festivals featuring a variety of local talent; sold-out shows featuring two touring pianists, and, as the saying goes, much, much more. Let's go the the highlights... Wednesday, June 15 Saxophonist Doug Lawrence leads a quartet in a free show at Saxquest; Cabaret Project St. Louis presents ...
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Jazz This Week: The Wee Trio, Take 6, J.D. Parran and George Sams, Scott Kirby, Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola, and More
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
With spring appearing finally to have sprung here in St. Louis, it should be a fine weekend to get out and hear some live jazz and creative music, and fortunately, our local stages will be filled with intriguing possibilities. Let's go to the highlights... Tonight, Good 4 The Soul plays their monthly gig at BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups; Washington University's jazz studies students will perform a free concert to wrap up this semester's Jazz at Holmes series; the Lemp ...
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Jazz This Week: Joey Defrancesco, Peter Martin and Jeremy Davenport, J.D. Parran, Craig Hultgren, and More
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Warmer weather is in the forecast for St. Louis, but before you make plans to spend the whole weekend outdoors, you also may want to check out what's coming coming up in jazz and creative music over the next few days.Tonight, organist Joey DeFrancesco begins a four-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. There's always been an enthusiastic audience for bluesy, organ-driven jazz in St. Louis, and in the past DeFrancesco has proven to be a good draw ...
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Notes from the Net: On the Corner Reexamined; Osby, Harrold on Tour; Parran Live in NYC; Plus News, Interviews and More
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Here's the latest compilation of assorted news briefs and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including news of musicians originally from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions, plus assorted other items of interes* On the Miles Davis beat, Howard Mandel had a couple of pertinent posts recently on his Jazz Beyond Jazz blog - one covering an NYC performance of music from the recent concept album Miles From India at Iridium ...
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New CD from JD Parran and Mark Deutsch Coming November 7th
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Improvised Communications
Y'All of New York, Inc. is proud to announce the November 7th release of Omegathorp: Living City (Y'All 008), a new CD documenting a September 2002 Merkin Hall performance co-led by multi-reedist/composer JD Parran and string player/composer Mark Deutsch. Thomas Buckner (voice), David Darling (cello, electronics, electro-vocals), Joseph Kubera (piano) and Kevin Norton (percussion) round out the ensemble on Omegathorp: Living City, which features Parran's four-part title composition (a setting of poetry by the late Glenn Spearman), as well as ...
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